bigbasket, India’s largest online supermarket with over three million registered customers, opened its 17thcollection centre in Manchar, Pune District, on its fifth anniversary. Sadabhau Khot, Maharashtra’s minister of state for agriculture and horticulture, was present at the inauguration.

Thecollection centre will enhance market access to farmers from Pune district through fair pricing by aggregating demand and provide them with the necessary technological support by structuring payment gateways and logistics at the grassroots level.

Hari Menon, co-founder and chief executive officer, bigbasket, said,“Fruits and vegetables contribute to over 18 per cent of our total business. It is, therefore, very essential that we ensure that farm-fresh quality is extended to our customers at the best prices.”

“We will be partnering with 3,000-plus farmers by the end of 2017 to significantly improve our range and freshness of the produce. Our customers will soon have 45-plus options of farm-fresh fruits and vegetables to choose from,” he added.

“We are proud that the inauguration of one of our largest and state-of- the-art collection centres in Manchar marks the onset of our fifth anniversary celebrations,” Menon stated.

Rupesh Syal, regional business head, bigbasket.com, said, “Byensuring complete transparency in every step, we have created a platform for direct exchange of goods and information exchange between the farmer and the consumer.”

“This will guarantee an instant and profitable payout to farmers and also enable the availability of safe, freshand best-quality harvest fruits and vegetables to consumers at competitive prices. We look forward to working with farmers from Pune District,” he added.

This will be the second collection centre in Maharashtra. The first, in Nashik,has just started its operations. The produce will be sorted/graded in the farmers’ presence, accurately weighed and accounted for at transparent and fair prices.

Payment will be credited to the farmers’ bank accounts withinthree days of their submission of the produce. Syal said trained agronomists from bigbasket would work very closely with the farmers to help improve the quality of their yield.

The company has an online retail presence in 30 cities and serves a customer base of over 50,000 on a daily basis. The fruit and vegetable business at bigbasket has seen a 10 percent growth on a month-on-month basis.

As part of its effective sourcing strategy, it sources 60 per cent of the sales directly from farmers via the collection centre.

By transforming the supply chain into a value chain, it brought 1,200 farmers and 3,000-plus acres of cultivated land growing over 45 different varieties of fruits and vegetable under its umbrella. Direct sourcing has increased margins by 6-7 per cent and farmer incomes by 10-15 per cent.